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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24584518">letting go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiccaning/pseuds/wiccaning'>wiccaning</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide ((this is rlly mild)), Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Trans Dave Strider, Trans Dirk Strider, he is transmasc, roxy uses he/him pronouns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:41:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24584518</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiccaning/pseuds/wiccaning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dude. We can argue about this all night or you can enlighten me as to why the fuck you seem to enjoy sitting up here. It doesn’t entirely have the nicest memories attached to it.” He indicated to the darkened spots of blood that littered the rooftop.</p><p>“I told you. I like to think.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave Strider &amp; Dirk Strider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>letting go</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>uhh this is just sort of, me analyzing dirk and dave or whatever. idk. its sort of an au thing. basically, Dave and Rose are twins, Dirk and Roxy are twins and the four of them are raised by some version of bro and mom. Bro is, as usual, a pos. i'm also working on a more canon compliant june egbert thing so!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The air on top of the apartment was cool, and the wind blew almost harsher up here. Dirk’s legs dangled dangerously off the edge of the roof as he watched the cars drive along the road below, like a child watching over their toy city. The breeze had destroyed what was left of style and gel in his hair, and white-blond strings danced to and fro. </p><p>He almost didn’t notice when Dave sat down next to him, sitting cross legged on the ledge. The brothers sat quiet for a minute before Dirk spoke, in his usual harsh, monotonous tone.</p><p>“Can I help you?”</p><p>Beside him, Dave shrugged. “Not really. Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t done like, a victory leap off the roof or whatever.”</p><p>Dirk didn’t answer, just tilted his head a little. Dave leaned back onto the roof, uncrossing his legs and letting them match his brothers. For a while, the only sound between on the roof was the billowing of the wind.</p><p>Dave spoke, after what seemed like hours. “What are you thinking about up here, anyway? It’s windy as all fuck.” </p><p>Dirk turned to look at him. Dave had pushed his sunglasses off his face. They lay folded at the top of his head, and he stared up at the sky. The usually blazing Texas sun had started it’s slow descent down, and hues of orange, pink and purple could be seen between the buildings, mixing and flowing together as if that was how the sky had always been. Wispy clouds sat overtop, as if they’d been a lazy afterthought added by a painter. </p><p>He redirected his thoughts to his brother's question. He hadn’t been thinking about much of anything, letting his brain disconnect from his body. The skyline put him in a trance almost, and it was nice to not be harrowed by his own brain; the obsessive trains of thought that seemed to slam into his cortex like it was a brick wall.</p><p>He couldn’t deny that he came up here to think sometimes, though. The apartment was usually chaotic, with the Egbert-Crocker-Harley-Englishes over, or whatever nonsense their mother had thought of recently. It was nice to have a space where you could think, even if the roof was littered with old bloodstains and shards of metal from their sorry excuse for a father’s desire to teach them to strife.</p><p><em> If you say you’re a man, get up here and prove it, </em> he’d say, and thrust a sword into their hands. And then it was the screech of metal on metal, and he’d move at impossible speeds. The only time he made his presence known was when the sharp edge of the sword made contact with an arm through sleeves, or if one of them managed to deflect for half a second. The two of them together had never bested him, not once. The strifes usually ended with Rose trying her best to stitch them up- Roxy had always been too inebriated to stitch right. Dirk didn’t blame him. </p><p>The combined Strider-Lalonde house had been a nightmare for years, and Roxy followed in their mother's footsteps, developing an addiction to alcohol to cope with the terror that was their ‘father’.</p><p>His train of thought was interrupted by Dave yet again. </p><p>“Alright, don't tell me. S’cool. Whatever.” </p><p>“I wasn’t thinking of anything. Sometimes it's nice to be somewhere quiet for once. Downstairs is not quiet.”</p><p>“I guess.” Dave gave half a shrug. “Okay, then what <em> do </em> you think of when you come up here?”</p><p>Dirk sighed. “Stuff.”</p><p>“Wow. A master of words if I do say so myself. You write your shit yourself?”</p><p>Dirk glared at him through his sunglasses. Dave didn’t react. </p><p>“I’ll just guess until you tell me.” Dave said, and he began to list topics, one by one. Dirk didn’t react to any of them, but he visibly flinched when Dave said the name ‘Jake’. Dave stopped listing as Dirk turned to face him. A grin that could only be described as ‘shit-eating’ had spread across his face. Dirk’s gaze hardened behind his glasses, but Dave kept on talking.</p><p>“Ah, shit. I knew it. When are you like, gonna tell him about that? He totally likes you, dude. I think if you don’t say something, Roxy’s gonna like, lock you in a closet. No pun intended or whatever.”</p><p>“Dave, I will fling myself off this godforsaken roof before Roxy can lay a hand on me. You’ll have to scrape my remains off the pipes underneath the road. Cars will have to swerve to avoid the hole in the middle of the road shaped like me. The road will be shut down for months because my twin attempted to lock me in a closet with a straight boy who wants to sleep with any blue woman he sees. The casket at my funeral will be closed, because they’re still scraping me out of the road. The only part of me intact will be my dope as fuck sunglasses, which will be placed in my coffin.”</p><p>“Jesus, Dirk, I was kidding. About the closet part. Jake is like, in love with you or something.”</p><p>Dirk gritted his teeth. “He is not.” </p><p>“Okay, whatever. What do you think about then, when you’re not thinking about making out with English.”</p><p>“I don’t think about Jake!” Dirk snapped. Dave had pushed himself up onto his elbows and he’d raised an eyebrow, as if to say that he wasn’t buying it.</p><p>“Dude. We can argue about this all night <em> or </em> you can enlighten me as to why the fuck you seem to enjoy sitting up here. It doesn’t entirely have the nicest memories attached to it.” He indicated to the darkened spots of blood that littered the rooftop.</p><p>“I told you. I like to think.”</p><p>“About Jake.” Dave obviously was not letting the topic of Jake go. Dirk half signed, half groaned in defeat. </p><p>“Fine. I think about Jake. Happy?” He said through gritted teeth. Dave shrugged. </p><p>“I mean, are you thinking of whatever weird, ironic way you can to ask him out? Like, are you going to build a robot replica of yourself for him to spar with as like, a weird ass way of courting him. Imagine this. You’ve sent him the last part in the mail. He’s put it together, and after months and months, the robot, like, beheads itself on his floor. Inside is like, a note where you have written ‘Hey Jake, it’s Dirk. Nice ass. Let’s date.’ Or some shit. He says yes and you guys like, grow old and shit together on an island with like, all his fuckin blue bitches and your robot parts all over the place. You’ve got a dog, because he’s jealous of the relationship Jade has with Bec. You talk about having kids but like, you never do because fuck that, this family is already a goddamn trainwreck. Mom like… cries because she wants grandkids but like, she only produced gay kids so the most shes got is robots and all of Roxy’s cats. We’re at a family gathering for the first time and she-” </p><p>“Jesus christ Dave, if I talk about it a little will you <em> stop </em> rambling.” Dirk cut him off. Dave looked mildly annoyed at being cut off, but he nodded anyway.</p><p>“Fine. Go for it.” </p><p>“I’m not asking out Jake because there's no way in hell he could ever like me.”</p><p>“Why not?” Dave asked. </p><p>Dirk rubbed his eyes, pushing his pointed shades up on his face, before pulling his hands away and letting them fall back on his face. They landed askew, but he didn’t fix them. He continued. </p><p>“We’ve discussed this about 2 times within the past 20 minutes. Jake has no interest in men, including ones like me.”</p><p>“Like, ironic assholes in pointy sunglasses?”</p><p>“If he was interested in men, it wouldn’t be in trans men.” Dirk's tone was bitter, full of as much self hatred as he would allow to puncture the words. </p><p>“Oh.” Dave sounded taken aback, as if he hadn’t expected that as an option. A tense, uncomfortable silence settled over them as Dirk’s anger and thoughts of self hatred continued to stew. </p><p>“Yeah, oh.”</p><p>Dave looked like he was thinking about what to say. Dirk turned his attention away from his younger brother, and back to the street below. He didn’t turn as Dave started talking.</p><p>“Listen, uh, I get having like, internalized issues, because like, I have the same issues. I mean, considering we had a megalomaniac as a father who insisted that if we wanted to be dudes or however the fuck he put it, we had to like, shove this hypermasculine stick up our asses and of course, being gay was not included in the standards of that stick despite the obviously gay implication of shoving anything up an ass, but like, do you consider other trans guys men? Would you date them?”</p><p>Dirk hesitated. “... Yeah.” </p><p>“Then if Jake’s into dudes, why wouldn’t you be included in that category of dudes.”</p><p>“...” Dirk didn’t answer. He turned around in his seat and faced Dave. The sun was closer to the horizon now, and the sky had faded to a darker blue.</p><p>“Seriously. Okay, other than Jake, what do you think about? Or like, are you just sitting up here stewing in self pity.”</p><p>“Shit man. I don’t know. I mean, I guess it could be considered wallowing in self pity. Maybe I’m thinking about that masculinity stick or whatever you said.”</p><p>“Okay, what about the masculinity stick?”</p><p>Dirk sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“Know what I think?”</p><p>“I haven’t developed psychic powers within the past 30 seconds, so no.”</p><p>“Okay. I think you’re so obsessed with seeming like a hypermasculine douchebag because you like, are super insecure about others perceiving you as a dude, so like, the hypermasc stick in your ass is used to mask your own insecurity. I think you come up here and worry that Jane and Jake have seen through this ‘persona’ and decoded that Dirk Strider is not the straight cis guy they think he is.”</p><p>Dirk glared at him over his sunglasses, but he didn’t respond for a full two minutes. </p><p>“...How did you know that?” He asked eventually, in an uncharacteristically quiet tone. </p><p>“Dude, I went through the exact same mindset. It’s like a weird parasite, clinging to you, drinking your blood, laying eggs in you. And like, dude. I get it. The whole world paints this picture of what ‘being a man’ is and none of it includes things like showing emotions or wanting to make out with the cute guy in your english class. It took me like, a long ass time to unlearn that it wasn’t wrong to be outside of society’s definition of a man or whatever. But it wasn’t until I started talking to June and Jade and Rose and Karkat about it that I started to feel more comfortable existing outside that shit. We had a sociopath for a father figure who instilled all this horseshit into our heads, like this whole thing was some fuckin’ game for him and sometimes I worry I’m letting him down but then I realize it doesn’t matter, I could never live up to the guys standards if I wanted to. So I stopped trying to please the invisible bro-dad in my head and I’m like… cool now.” Dave shrugged. “Not cool but like, I don’t beat myself up for dumb shit anymore. I don’t really worry the worlds gonna see me for less of a dude for holding hands with my boyfriend anymore. Like, sometimes that shit creeps into my head, like some sort of fucked up clown crawling through the vents in a weird ass horror movie, but it's not as suffocating anymore.”</p><p>Dirk looked at him. Dave was still lying on the concrete. He’d put his sunglasses on his head, and was checking his phone as if he hadn’t just seen through Dirk’s entire person. </p><p>“When the fuck did you get smarter than me?” Dirk asked him finally.</p><p>“Oh, I’ve always been smarter than you dude, you’ve just never known it.”</p><p>Dirk sighed. “Sure. Whatever. That was bullshit anyway.”</p><p>“Was it, Dirk? Was it?” Dave put his phone down and looked at Dirk, red eyes staring down orange through a thin layer of black glass. Dirk didn’t have a chance to answer before the door leading back into the apartment building swung open. Roxy entered the roof, Jake and Jane in tow. </p><p>“There you guys are! We thought like you got sucked into some portal or something. Are you going to come inside?” Roxy had his hands on his hips. Behind him, in the dim light of the doorway, Jane and Jake were staring at the various spots of blood on the ground, horrified. But neither of them had a chance to speak before Dirk swung his legs back onto the roof, and stood up. Dave seemed to follow suit, replacing the aviators on his face. </p><p>“We were just coming, Roxy.” Dirk’s tone had returned to normal. Roxy grinned. </p><p>“Good. Now, come on, we gotta kick the kids off the switch, they’re hogging MarioKart.”</p><p>“Roxy. I promise you, you will have to pry the switch from my cold dead hands.” Dave spoke, before tearing past everyone, and back down the stairs to the apartment. </p><p>Roxy shrieked, tearing back down the stairs, screaming profanities, Jane running with him. Jake grinned at Dirk, grabbing his sleeve as they took off after the others.</p><p>“Come on, old chum!” He said excitedly, green eyes almost sparkling in the dim light of the hallway. The door slammed shut behind them as they raced down the stairs, back into the chaos of the apartment</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>reminder to sign as many petitions as u can for blm, donate to the george floyd memorial, demand justice.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>if u wanna get a hold of me, im @transstriders on twitter</p></blockquote></div></div>
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